The Dungeon Masters' Foundation Mk.II

[Evilhalfling]

*grin* ROL

just lovely, stomping all over the killer trap I love it.
Erm as a DM - This world kept track of its epic level heros, as gossip. So every sseason a new set of rumors would start driffing around the cities about archmages, Warlords and highlevel groups.
In about the second wave of rumors, the party hears about a buch of bards being killed and their heads stolen in a far away city. So that game they ignore the actuall plot - which was going to involve mummies and citywide rioting, to go see this other city, which btw had not been designed. Sigh. Of course the new city was even more fun than the old and they managed not to get killed by the 17th lvl bard who was the assasin.

Playing:
Digging under a pair of beholders (See sig) it helps that I have +11 in profession Mining
we got underneith a hostile city the same way but I bet the DM has come up with a way to stop us before we skip most of the fighting and attack the center temple.

 

[Mordmorgan the Mad]

Ah… The tale of Rogue Roulette… *Puff*

That may be the best story I've ever heard. Nicely handled, too!

 

[LilMissKittyn]

That's amazing, Nightcloak. Absolutely amazing.
I'm sure CE has a story for you guys too - if he doesn't tell it I'll have to.

 

[ChaosEvoker]

As a player:
Ah my very first character......Vorramion Xiloscient. He was converted from 2E into 3E. We were aobut lv 18 and we were trying to get some items that we were destined to have. Anyway the scene went something like this:
DM: You see a gargantuan worm wrapped around the enourmous columns in this large room. It is a deep purple color with a pink underbelly, its mouth is filled with many a row of sharp teeth. It doesn't seem to notice your entrance
Me: Alright knowldege(nature) to see what it is.
DM: Alright go ahead.
Me: I got a total of ## (some high number this was a long time ago)
DM: Alright you remember that this is a Fiendworm.
Me: Aww crap, this thing is like CR 24 or something like that. Well we have to go through here, might as well take the surprise attack. I'm shooting it with an arrow.
DM: Roll your attack roll.
Me: (20) YES!! (The DM is watching the rolls after this one)
DM: Alright see if you verify.
Me: (20) ....WOOT! Alright. (We are playing with an instant kill variant for only 3 20s in a row)
DM: ....Alright rolls your instant kill check.
Me: *not expecting too much* (20) ................................
DM: .....................
Everyone: ...........................
DM: It....dies.
Everyone: ..........................
DM: *withotu words get the DMG opens it up and begins flipping though, we sit in silence waiting to see what he says*
DM: ChaosEvoker (he used my name IRL here) you gain 14,750 XP.
Everyone: .................
Belesarius: (yes the one that just joined) THAT WAS AWESOME!
Me: YES!!!!!
Everyone: *general amusement and celebration*

Ah good times...fortunatly it ended well though the um level balance of the party was slightly off for a while, since I went to lv 19. (and was close to 20) BUt its not often that a lv 18 character instantly kills a CR 24 or higher monster.

so there's my story....

 

[ChaosEvoker]

Excellent story Nightcloak, I hsould get a notbook labeled "Stuff I Hate" and do that, that's hillarious.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

New Topic.

DM’s: Any tales of a great scheme gone awry. You sat chuckling in your fortress of solitude knowing that the plans you had for your players were just dastardly. They would stare in horror at you and curse your name. But game time hit and they totally blew it away. They ran right through your scheme and hardly noticed the twitch in your face.
Come on, it happens. That is why they invented grudge monsters

So, one and all. Pull up a chair and tell us a great (or infamous) moment in PC history.

Okay, this story is going to make me sound like a horrible DM (which some of my players and former players undoubtedly think I am anyway)...

A long time ago in the glory days of 1st Edition D&D, I was home for the summer after my freshman year of college. Nobody on my college campus played D&D except for a few really strange guys in a back room in the basement of my dorm who were NEVER seen in any actual clases (true story), so I was desperate for gaming. I got most of my players together, put out the word for a few new players to join up and drew up a homebrew (actually had been working on it in my spare time all year) high level campaign so that my players could get a change to play their old characters again (we gamed from 8th grade all through high school together).

When the time came for the first session, I 12 players showed up on my front porch for the first session (okay, huge screened porch... I loved that room). Yes, 12 players! I had gamed with 3 of them previously and several of them were a bit younger than I had hoped (including one 8th grade kid who had only played a few sessions). So, we started the session after a quick (VERY quick glance at the character sheets... I mean, there were a LOT of players).

In my scenario, a trio of UBER NPC's kidnaps the characters from their home worlds and promises to send them home after performing a service for them (which would conveniently fill the three months of sessions before my return to college). They tell the PC's a story revolving around some despicably evil bad guys who have taken over their world that can only be deposed by strongest heroes of other worlds. They (the trio) had the power to bring the PC's there, but not kill the "bad guys."

In reality, the trio of NPC's were the bad guys. I was counting on the PC's to go with my intro and slowly learn this. One of my veteran players saw through this immediately and ordered the party into defensive positions. This was not going well.

Keep in mind that the NPC's were powerful. Also keep in mind that I hadn't counted on 12 players. Keep in mind as well that I did a VERY QUICK scan of the character sheets and had several players new to my group.

A skrmish quickly ensued that saw the party outmatched, but just barely, since they had the advantage of numbers. The skirmish resolves into a standoff, with neither side making a major move for several minutes of feinting and repositioning.

Then come the fateful, dreaded words...

"I raise the horn on the cord around my neck and blow long and hard."

Uh oh. "What horn?"

"The one on my character sheet, right here." The player quickly hands back the character sheet and there it is, right where I should have seen it had my scan been more thorough.

"Okay. You blow a fearsome note on your horn and... <rolling of dice> 00. Oh crap (though I am sure my language was stronger than that)! Many figures appear around the battlefield. Directly behind your adversaries, you see a many beautiful figures and handsome faces. One strong looking warrior rides a six-legged steed and another carries a huge hammer. As you see the look of fear on the faces of your three opponents, you turn and see an entire tribe, or more, of frost giants advancing from behind you. Roll initiative."

The PC had blown the "Horn of Valhalla." It was right there on his sheet and I missed it! Everyone was slaughtered. We took a long walk (on which many strange things happened and one of my players caused a horrible auto accident... that is another story entirely) and came back and set up a time for the next session. New campaign, fewer players (that was my only session with about four of them and one of my three vets left too)... What a summer!

DM

 

[Nightcloak]

That may be the best story I've ever heard. Nicely handled, too!

Thank you! Although I don't know about how I handled it. I think I sat there in stuned silence at the time. At least the players had a great time! Of course, the one guy in my group from then and myself equally laugh about it now.

That's amazing, Nightcloak. Absolutely amazing.
I'm sure CE has a story for you guys too - if he doesn't tell it I'll have to.

[Puts on sage hat] All you new DMs out there, don't sweat the accidents and problems. They will one day be great stories to remember and laugh about. [/Takes off sage hat]

Excellent story Nightcloak, I hsould get a notbook labeled "Stuff I Hate" and do that, that's hillarious.

Ironically, the one guy from back in the 2E days in my group is the one guy with the list. Although he doesn't have the list any more. He only used it to be a smart ass and protest the high level of undead I was using and the several side trips to Ravenloft I shoved them into at the time.

* Nods to the evil laughter comming from Madmorgan *

Further, 3E made undead invulnerable to criticals and sneak attacks and has only increased his dislike of undead. Now I really hear about it when the undead show up, and even more if he rolls a 20. Great player, but I think he was a dwarf in another life. Shows up to the game with exotic microbrews and ready to give you his opinion


As a side note, this happened before the beholder "incident" from my other story. In the end, history favors the DM!

 

[ChaosEvoker]

Yeah my players complained about undead, especialy certian ones with the name of famous byzantine generals for a SN on ENWorld......

Anyways, I am so gettign a ntoebook for my next session, our group kind of take stuff liek that as comic relief so it'll be a godo stress reliever when things get tense.

 

[Xen155]

Hello. I'm Belesarius. I want in. I just got DSL and can actualy participate without spending 45 minutes to post a reply. I'm DMing about 3 groups off and on, but I'm mostly a player. That's because I don't know how to be a DM. The only relatively steady DM I have is the biggest rat bastard on the planet. So You guys give me some tips and I'll tell you stories about the worst DM on the planet. (No offense in case my DM gets on. Not so bad, just a lot of rat bastard stories.)

Greetings Belesarious..... good to see ya around..Im typing between bouts of laughing.


[SBLOCK] *Deep Paladin voice* I ACCEPT THY QUEST![/SBLOCK]

 

[Belesarius]

That rogue roulette thing was awesome. Reminds me of my favorite issue of KoDT. Ok, yeah. My name on enworld is the name of my best PC from D&D. He was origionaly spelled Belisarius, but NEVER Belesarious, Mr. Xen. You know Belesarius takes offense to that. He's arogant. Even for a paladin. Anyway, he was named after an obscure Byzantine general from the middle ages. And, no I don't mean the current DM, who if ever to get on these boards, would be Sidwyn or Jabogan. I mean Mr ChaosEvoker. Yes sir, you are indeed a rat bastard. Here's how Belesarius dies. (Though he came back later.) We had just gotten Xen into the group and were playing in my living room, when for some reason all our PCs were transported to this arena, where we were to battle one of two enemies to the death. One coice was an arcane archer. Now this was the eventual class of Vorramion, who by the way, was first named Furion Stormrage. Sound familiar? Yeah. The druid from WarCraft II. So he took some name some girlfriend gave him. Now he was an arcane archer, and didn't know how to use the class, as we were still trying to transition between 2E and 3E. So he was amazingly overpowered. And this guy was higher level, and he had a cloak of mirroring like the one in Baldur's Gate Two. It reflects all ARCANE spell damage back at the caster. So we decided there was no way. So we took the other choice, and you're going to enjoy this, two paragon tarrasques. You may be thinking to yourselves, "but there is only one tarrasque, and it might as well be paragon, as it destroyes everyhting in about two rounds!" Yes, well, there were two. And they were paragon. And not like the prestige class in Unearthed Arcana, like the template in Epic Level Handbook. So ChaosEvoker told us we were stupid and made us fight the arcane archer instead. Now Belesarius had a secret weapon, and after the monk charged and valiently died, Belesarius the great paladin (and master of ironic weapons) slamed his demon sword on the ground and threw a seriously beefed flame strike right down on the sucker, at the expense of most of my hit points and strength(temp), as to harness the power, I had to give some of my energy to the sword. And it reflected. And I died. Now first, this was stupid, because ChaosEvoker just wanted us dead. Second, the cloak was only supoosed to reflect ARCANE damage. This was divine! Flamestrike was always primarily a divine spell! And this was diffinately the divine version, because that's what was said about it when I got the thing. The arcone archer promptly killed the remaining characters, which I believe were only the rogue and Xen's character. I don't know which one it was. Anyway, from that day, I will always regard Chaos as a rat bastard, and there's nothing he can do about it. I still enjoy the game, but that made me mad. It was a final straw, if you will.